Prudence Cautious

Old Common Sense: Or, the Englishman's Journal

1738, Issue 77.

Red Lion Square, July 20, 1738.
Sir,
I am of that few who can enjoy the Pleasures of Innocent Diversion without being a slave to Mode or Fashion...and can be delighted with the polite entertainments either at Vauxhall or Marybone...Musick and fresh Air, I own, are my chief Delights in this Season of the Year; for which reason I am seldom an Evening without taking a Taste of both...I have lately taken it into my unfashionable Noddle to chuse the alternative of safe journey to Mary-bone, [instead of] an expensive and perilous voyage to Vaux-hall...My Cozen Charlotte...teazes my Heart out to alter my Mind...I appeal to you, whether I, that have twice already this Summer escap'd drowning in my passage from Vaux-hall, ought to comply.

Vauxhall Gardens was then the most fashionable resort in London; Marylebone Gardens attracted the middling sort with, in the words of Henry Newman, 'rarely any quality among them.' The letter from Ms Cautious, a probably pseudonymous and possibly fictitious correspondent, ostensibly seeks support for rejecting Cousin Charlotte's entreaties, but may actually have been a puff.

I insist upon't, that the Musick is as good at Mary-bone; the Air much better, there is as much, and as good Company there as I want to be in; the Refreshments are as elegant to the full, and cheaper; and, I am sure, the Risk and Expence of coming at them is much less